Suspended Tamarac mayor wants criminal charges dropped

February 23, 2012|By Paula McMahon, Sun Sentinel

The defense for Tamarac's suspended Mayor Beth Flansbaum-Talabisco again urged a Broward judge to dismiss criminal charges against her on Thursday, insisting that she received no benefit from city developers.

"She didn't get any money in her pocket, not a dime," her attorney Larry S. Davis told Circuit Judge Cynthia Imperato.

The defense concedes that Flansbaum-Talabisco's 2006 election campaign benefited from donations made by developers Bruce and Shawn Chait to what the defense said was an independent electioneering fund that paid for ads to attack the other candidates.

Flansbaum-Talabisco fingered worry beads in court and seemed exasperated as prosecutor Catherine Maus argued the charges should go to a jury.

Maus said the money from the Chaits — $19,500 for attack ads and $7,700 for an opinion poll — was a benefit because it turned the closely tied race into a March 14, 2006, election win for Flansbaum-Talabisco. The job paid $27,000 a year and $3,500 for expenses, city records show.

"To say she's received no benefit is nonsense," Maus said.

Maus argued that Flansbaum-Talabisco knew about and accepted the help from the Chaits, knowing she would soon have to vote on their proposed massive housing development.

The project was very controversial and Flansbaum-Talabisco made a show of returning donations the Chaits made in their names to her campaign, prosecutors said.

At the same time, prosecutors said, Flansbaum-Talabisco was present when her campaign manager, Beverly Stracher told Shawn Chait how to set up the so-called independent Electioneering Communications Organization, or ECO, that attacked her opponents. The Chaits said they funneled those donations through subcontractors to hide their involvement from the public and Stracher put together the attack ads.

The crimes occurred when, less than two weeks after the election, Flansbaum-Talabisco voted for the Chaits' project and failed to disclose their financial assistance that helped her win, Maus said.

Though the defense said Flansbaum-Talabisco had always supported the Chaits' proposal to build on the former Sabal Palm and Monterey golf courses, prosecutors filed court records saying that wasn't true.

Cynthia Baker, a resident of the nearby Mainlands, told prosecutors in a sworn statement that Flansbaum-Talabisco convinced her she opposed the Chaits' project, so Baker helped hand out 1,500 political ads to her neighbors.

The fliers, paid for by Flansbaum-Talabisco's campaign, included the lines: "TRUTH: Beth was the first and only mayoral candidate to offer to refund campaign contributions to the developer! … Mainlands needs a leader who will stand up for you and not bow to developers and special interests!"

The Chaits said they got aggravated because Flansbaum-Talabisco seemed to be wavering in her support for them at the March 22, 2006, vote on their project. Maus said it was because Flansbaum-Talabisco had "been talking out of both sides of her mouth" to the Chaits and the neighboring residents, hundreds of whom attended the commission meeting to make their objections known. She eventually voted for the Chaits.